Yet now what was happening to her? Instead of being crushed beneath the tumult she was borne up by it, filled not with fear but with exultation. Her eyes were sharpened and not dimmed, and she noticed tiny details that before she had been too afraid to see - a stout housewife in tears as she waved a home-embroidered pennon with a white boar on it, a gaping hole in the shoulder of a blue velvet gown where a too-hastily stitched seam had given way, a row of rosy children’s faces at an upper window with mouths as wide as fledglings in the nest, while their hands pointed and waved frantically. She followed the line of their gazes and found that this welcome was not only for the King and Queen and Prince of Wales. John Wrangwysh was laughing back at the children and blowing kisses - of course, the Wrangwysh family lived in Micklegate, and those must be his nephews and nieces. Unusual to see the sombre John laughing ... and she returned to her own family, Edward riding a piebald pony between her and Richard, and their sallow faces too were lit with smiles of pure pleasure.
They were, the three of them, all lonely people, too absorbed in the struggle to keep hold of life and duty for the easy contacts and exchanges of casual friendship. Away from the tight circle of devoted followers who had learned to love them through the years they were bereft, as solitary as a ship cast on a rock in the empty ocean. But the warm-hearted people of York, for long the beneficiaries of Richard’s good works, had recognised in them his good will and had gone more than half way in returning his affection to him and his family in the hour of their triumph. And surrounded by this demonstration, so generous and frank, the walls of their loneliness were breached for a short time and they were not separate any more.
The idea of a ceremony to show his gratitude to York, which Richard had conceived at Warwick and gestated at Pomfret, was expounded to his councillors the following day. Edward, created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester officially a week since, would be solemnly invested with his titles in York Minster; the splendour of the occasion should be Richard’s thanks to the citizens who had always supported him so loyally and now had received him so royally. London, because it was the capital, had had its coronation. York, because he loved it, should have this unique triumph.
In the interim, the city continued to entertain the King and his train with exhausting inventiveness, and for the first and only time of her life Anne enjoyed it all. On the day before the investiture there was a special performance of the Creed Play by the Corpus Christi Guild in the Guildhall. As many as possible of the royal party were crammed into the building, but at the front on a chair piled with cushions to give him a good view was the Prince of Wales with his tutor Master Bernall beside him. Tomorrow he would be the central figure of the great ritual; today, enthralled by the play, he had forgotten his reserve and his precocious dignity, leaning forward with flushed cheeks and wide eyes, one foot kicking happily at a leg of the chair. He too was enjoying himself. But despite his apparent recovery from the travel-sickness, Anne worried a little about his ability to endure such a long and heavy day. Richard had discounted her barely expressed fears and said that Ned was quite strong enough.
‘Besides,’ he added, ‘he’s becoming a great stoic. He would rather die on his feet, I believe, than admit fatigue.’ Because that was rather what she feared, she said no more; Edward was certainly his father’s son in that respect.
And indeed he played his part perfectly. It was the Feast of the Blessed Virgin, a morning soft with mist and sharp with the imminence of autumn, and when he was crowned with a golden wreath and presented with a golden rod of office, the sun slid gently through the ancient stained glass of the Minster and touched the wreath and the fair hair beneath with radiance. As he stood small and upright in the shaft of light among the soaring lines of pillars, it seemed to shine through him, making of him an insubstantial creature hardly of the earth at all. Watching him, Anne was stabbed with a love and terror so great that the ground seemed to dissolve beneath her feet. She half expected to see him ascending that ladder of sunshine, caught out of her sight and up into heaven as Galahad had been of old. And then the sun faded, Edward put up a hand to adjust his chaplet, and the momentary panic was gone. Stealing a glance at Richard, she saw that his face was full of happy pride, and as the ceremony continued she regained the sense of security which had come to her as they rode under Micklegate Bar. Nothing could harm her family here in York.
The Prince of Wales knelt before his father the King to receive the accolade; as the sword smote gently on his shoulders he closed his eyes, the better to concentrate on the dedication of himself to the service of his sovereign and his God. He was, thought Anne, taking this as seriously as Richard had taken his coronation, but whereas in Westminster Abbey she had been left outside the consecration, here in York Minster she was part of it.
Such pageantry had surely never been seen before within the ancient walls of York. As the procession emerged from the great west door of the Minster, a forest of banners and pennants unfurled and flaunted beneath the misty sun. Their tinctures and devices were reflected in the coats of the heralds, and the livery of the men-at-arms who held back the admiring and ecstatic crowd. Fresh exclamations greeted each group which passed and rose to a roar as three royal standards, leopards and lilies beaten in pure gold, preceded the King and Queen, crowned, and the Prince of Wales. Richard was wearing the long gown of purple cloth-of-gold which was Anne’s coronation gift, embroidered with insignias of the Garter and the white rose of the House of York. Anne’s robe was deep blue and edged with white ermine, her pale hair flowing to her waist as was permitted only to virgins and to queens. Between them their son, still bearing his rod of authority, was in crimson velvet, for the red dragon of his principality, and his head was held very high.
As they walked between the tight-packed ranks of citizens they turned from side to side, smiling, and it seemed to each member of the crowd that the smile was for them. This, after all, was their King, as no king had been before since the Roman emperor Constantine was proclaimed there, a thousand years before. They had known him and his Queen since they were children, riding in to spend Christmas with the monks in Lendel Priory, joining their merrymaking at Corpus Christi, making friends among them, listening to their grievances and settling their disputes, great and small. Why, the frail Prince Edward, who was really more of York than of Wales, had been born and bred in their county and would, it was promised, take over his father’s responsibility for the North Country when he was grown to manhood in the castle of Sheriff Hutton. They had acclaimed other men in the past, faintly and loudly, and would in the future, but none with such full throats and glad hearts.
Young Edward’s immaculate bearing during his installation was not without its price. In a disturbing echo of his mother’s collapse after her coronation he developed a temperature the next day and had to be kept in bed. It was not serious - no more than a nervous reaction, said the physician - and two days later he was back to normal. But it cast something of a shadow over their hitherto joyous sojourn.
The merrymaking went on, yet Anne began to notice small signs that Richard was no longer fully at ease: he took to pacing at night when they retired to their chamber, and to twisting his signet ring as he had done in former times of stress. The truth was that Richard’s conscience was being pricked by too much happiness. Now that he had given his most loyal subjects the handsome thanks they deserved, he could find less and less justification for remaining relaxed in their hospitable company. His unpredictable capital, which would, he felt instinctively, never give him the love that was his in York, had lacked him for too long. Rumours of unrest in the south and east came to him with the regular posts who plied, by the system he and King Edward had set up during the Scots war, between London and the north. And he was the very antithesis of his brother, whose capacity for relaxing and enjoying himself had sometimes had serious effects, and once nearly lost him his throne.
Recognising in him this force which would always drive him on and make life uncomfortable for
those who lived with him, Anne knew that their time together as a family was limited. He would return to London, and Edward must go, first back to Middleham to complete his book education with Master Bernall, then to Sheriff Hutton to join his cousins the Earls of Lincoln and Warwick. And Anne, as before, would be rent in two. When at last Richard spoke of it, he had already perceived and considered her dilemma.
‘It will be a hard parting from Ned when we leave York,’ he said. ‘I wonder if perhaps you should go with him.’
‘To Middleham ... ‘ Her voice was full of longing.
‘Yes. I know you’ve been wanting to go back. To make sure that Dick is not causing chaos there.’ Lord Richard Fitzhugh, Steward of Middleham Castle, was a highly efficient administrator.
‘If I could… just for awhile... to see that Ned has settled down again. But then ... ‘ The other horn of the dilemma presented itself, ‘I should be with you. They will think it strange that the Queen is not with the King.’
‘Let them,’ said Richard tersely. ‘London is not all England.’ That he did not immediately agree that she should be with him, because he needed her, unreasonably hurt her. ‘Go with Ned. Rest for a while in Wensleydale. But I make one condition.’ Anne braced herself, but Richard smiled. ‘You must be back in London for Christmas. I can only do without you for so long.’
So her mind was made up for her, and she had to be content. Their time in York raced to an end, and there was a last banquet, given for them by Master Thomas Wrangwysh in his house in Micklegate. Looking around the laden table, between the pheasants and hams and sucking pigs, everyone present was known to Anne, and most of them were dear to her. Acquaintances, relatives, friends, from the small eager Earl of Warwick to the genial corpulence of their host; and as the canary and burgundy went round with comfits and sugared almonds and figs, she knew they were gathered for the last time. Some, of course, would meet again, but in the nature of things this company of good will and trust was for now, and nevermore. The thought saddened her, but there was about it a sweetness too which would make a happy memory. When they were bidding farewell to Thomas Wrangwysh, Anne suddenly recalled the first time she had seen him.
‘Do you know, Master Thomas,’ she said, ‘once you frightened me very much.’
‘I, madame? God forbid! What did I do?’
‘You came into the hall at Middleham to collect John for Christmas. I was very small, and you were very large.’ Thomas shook his head slowly, seeing the little scrap she had been then, seeking reassurance, and how she stood now with her hand in her husband’s, Queen of England to be sure, but still in need of the same reassurance.
‘And are you still afeared of me, your grace?’ he said, with the gentleness he reserved only for women.
‘Now, I count you among my dearest friends,’ Anne replied with unaccustomed frankness. The Yorkshireman seized her hand and kissed it with the freedom from obsequiousness which was characteristic of him.
‘And you among mine,’ he said. ‘Your graces both know that you have no subject more ready to serve you, now and always.’ They knew, as he kissed the King’s hand also, that he spoke no more than plain truth.
Richard was the first to go, and then the contingent for Sheriff Hutton set out from Bootham Bar. Anne was praying for a dry road up into Wensleydale, since an excess of mud would hold up the wagons and force an overnight stop. But the weather had finished being kind to them, and it was two days after leaving a still-cheering York that the Queen and the Prince of Wales, damp and weary, were carried across the drawbridge of Middleham in a chariot which was leaking at every joint. The better was their homecoming. Hot baths and towels and braziers were brought before any formalities, and within an hour of their arrival mother and son were seated comfortably in dry clothes in Anne’s solar with mugs of mulled ale at their elbows and bowls of steaming broth in their hands. Kat was weaving ecstatically between the legs of their chairs, and Katherine was in her old place on a cushion at Anne’s feet. It was as if they had been caught in a shower riding from Nappa Hall, and that nothing had changed.
Very little had changed, except that the place was quieter without the lads who had gone to Sheriff Hutton. The same orderly routine prevailed as had been established for many years, and Anne fell back into her role of mistress of the castle with the ease of long practice. Lord Fitzhugh had grown up there as she had, so there was immediate accord between her and her steward on the management of the household. Edward did not take cold from his soaking, and although the equinoctial storms raged outside, and the swollen waterfalls thundered at Aysgarth up the dale, the community at Middleham suffered no more than draughts, and were content.
But the peace that Anne had found again so quickly was deceptive, and by the middle of October she learned that the elements were the true reflectors of the country’s state. A letter from Richard at Lincoln announced baldly that armed insurrection had broken out in the south and west, and that its head and chief mover was the Duke of Buckingham. Anne’s shock contained no surprise; she had sensed from the first that Buckingham was a false friend, a man of great pride who would care not what was under his feet as he climbed to the heights. But her anguish was greater at the beginning for his betrayal of Richard’s love than for the physical danger in which her husband stood. For love it had been, a dazzled worshipping kind of love which since the death of King Edward had been idle for want of an object. His judgement of men was generally so sound, yet there was this one blind spot, where reason ceased to function and the heart was given without question. She had seen it in him at an early age with George of Clarence, but her awareness had never helped him. Now his crown and perhaps his life were at hazard because of it, and still she could do nothing. Her immediate instinct was to rush to his side, but that would be foolish. If he had to move fast a wife and her train would only hamper; as for his hurt, the damage was done and all he could do was hope to salve it with action, unless it was already too late.
She was waiting, wandering aimlessly around the inner bailey after early mass on a rare dry morning, when Katherine came to look for her.
‘Madame, will you come? I think something has happened.’ The girl’s eyes were huge and afraid.
‘Is it Ned?’ The immediate question.
‘No, not Ned. But please come.’ Anne took her hand and followed. At the door of the solar Katherine stopped.
‘I brought him his breakfast - as usual - scraps of chicken from last night, and you know how he loves chicken. I put the bowl beside his cushion and he was still asleep.’ It was Kat she was talking about, so much was evident. ‘But he has been sleeping more lately. So I tried to wake him, and he wouldn’t move. And, madame, I think he’s dead.’ She stood aside then to let Anne into the room. Kat was lying on his green velvet cushion, the latest in a long line of beds which had been patiently replaced as his claws tore the previous one to shreds. He was curled into his attitude of sleep, a sliver of pink tongue visible, and he was quite still. Anne knelt and placed her hand gently on his furry flank. There was a faint warmth, but no movement.
‘Yes, dearest, I fear he is.’ At once a flood of tears spilled from Katherine’s eyes, and she went into the older woman’s arms. ‘You mustn’t grieve. He died peacefully in his sleep. And he was very old for a cat, almost twelve years old.’ But she found she was crying too. Only for a cat, a pampered animal which had never given more than a condescending affection in exchange for a life of utter luxury. But Anne recalled with absolute clarity her first sight of Richard’s wedding gift to her, the tiny bundle of startlingly white fluff which had gone as trustingly into her arms as Kate had just done. She had often wondered how Richard had divined her feeling for cats, and especially for small kittens, but Kat had remained, all through the years of their marriage, as a symbol of that secret understanding which had first flowered over a beloved wooden billet in this very castle.
A page was hesitating in the doorway, uncertain whether to intrude upon this scene of sorrow or to withdraw
unnoticed. But Anne had seen him and, pressing Katherine’s bowed head closer to her, she asked what he wanted.
‘My lord Prince, madame, begs leave to wait upon your grace.’ His childish face was red with embarrassment at having come upon the Queen herself weeping. And since he was as aware as anyone in the castle that the King was facing a rebellion away in the south, he had to restrain himself from begging her to tell him what had happened. Keeping her voice as steady as she was able, Anne said she would go to the Prince’s apartments herself, in a few minutes. The page departed with thankful speed, and since he was a discreet child he did not tell more than his closest friend about how the Queen and Dame Katherine had been crying in each other’s arms.
The Queen prepared to visit her son. It was customary for him to present himself, after his morning devotions and before his morning lessons, but today Anne did not want him in here. He would care little about the cat’s death. He had always preferred dogs, and lately he had borne a particular resentment against Kat because of a fight in which the old sybarite had worsted Edward’s new hound puppy, Arrow. Although the dog had ended up shivering and whining between his master’s feet, with Kat arched and triumphant on the cushion, Arrow was the one who was banished from the Queen’s solar on pain of whipping. Whether the whipping would be administered to boy or pup was not made plain, but Edward was an obedient child. He bore no malice against his mother for severity, because he knew well her dislike of dogs and the place Kat held in her affections; also if Arrow had been more than half-trained he would have stayed to heel and never provoked the conflict. But he could scarcely be blamed for not loving the cat, and Anne determined at once not to mention what had happened.
She sent for Lady Lovel and handed the still-sobbing Katherine over to her. Her brother was Lord Fitzhugh, and between them they would know what to do about the mourning girl and fitting obsequies for Kat. Outside her chamber she met more delay: a messenger, dark with the renewed rain, and at once Kat’s death seemed to be a presage of disaster. But he wore no livery, and the seal on his letter was a merchant’s mark. Thomas Wrangwysh sent word that he was that day setting forth with three hundred men to join the King’s muster at Leicester. Anne silently blessed him; he would not have written if he had not guessed that any declaration of loyalty at such a time would cheer her.
The White Queen of Middleham: An historical novel about Richard III's wife Anne Neville (Sprigs of Broom Book 1) Page 32